Noisemaker
History Three years ago, Splitting-Hares made a decision. After a near death experience that most Garou normally took in stride, the Wendigo ragabash decided his path split itself and he chose to take on the duties of looking after a pack of Kinfolk wolves. The fact that his sept had lupus Kinfolk of their own was its own rarity. That Splitting-Hares would take up the task of being the guardian of the pack was something the elders regarded as a result of the newmoon's vision he'd seen after nearly falling completely in battle. Splitting-Hares wanted to live forever. But the only way he would live forever would be through his offspring. And the only way, Splitting-Hares knew, to try and have as many offspring as possible without being seen as the "loose loin cloth" around was to take on the ward of the kinfolk pack. It would not be a decision he regretted. The following year, from the time Splitting-Hares told his elders of his choice to his victory of dominance over the then-former alpha male of the pack for breeding rights, would be full of his own experiences in the truly feral. At first, it wasn't even certain that Splitting-Hares would be able to convince the alpha female to mate with him. No doubt, he had proven most cunning and capable at the hunt, but his scars from battle had left him with something to be desired in appearance. But one long stubborn streak and a little bit of cheating (he may have been born to humans, but learned that cleverness was a very valuable asset in the animal world, hardly looked down upon) eventually won her over and Splitting-Hares had his wish. It was during the Alaskan Spring that a new litter was born to the pack of Wendigo wolf kin - the pups of the alpha female and Splitting-Hares. Eight pups had been birthed, extremely surprising for a pack in the harsh environment of alpine tundra. It was even rarer that five, including Noisemaker, survived to adolescence. The resultant pack initially was decently sized with four wolves of breeding age, the alpha female, the beta male, the former-alpha male who was relegated to the omega position and Splitting-Hares the alpha. That their members increased to nine with the pups was nothing short of a boon for the Wendigo sept, but a mild bane on Splitting-Hares' responsibilities of keeping them alive and well. From the rite of Baptism by Fire, a ritual that Splitting-Hares himself had to perform in secret and thus took some time that month in planning and preparing, Noisemaker was the only of the pups to prove a Garou and was marked accordingly. Splitting-Hares was overjoyed to see that his decision had proved most worthy of his time and effort. For a Garou such as he, to have Kin pups and even better off a Garou, was to complete a great goal. Being an alpha male of a wolf pack had been hard for him to learn, but he knew his job wasn't done - seeing that Noisemaker survived to her First Change would be his next goal. It wasn't, however, a goal that he would see reached on his own. From an early age, Noisemaker stood out as the most rambunctious of the cubs, louder, more energetic. Definitely louder. It was almost as if she felt a need to further prove herself above her siblings by shouting them down as well. During those first several formative months, Noisemaker was eager to be the first to any form of action, whether it was feeding, playing, fighting, or howling, which led to her quickly placing herself as the dominant one of the litter, fending off the other cubs that tried to take the best of the milk or the warmest place to sleep. There were times when Noisemaker grew too bold, played too hard, explored too far. Though the alpha female never seemed to mind the straying of her pups, it fell to the beta and omega to keep the pups and Noisemaker in line. Splitting-Hares, for all his benevolence and dutiful leadership, had his moments where he simply could not trust himself and this affected not only him but his pack as well. The Curse, thin though it was for the ragabash, at times still resulted in divisive, mixed signals and unpredictable moodiness for the alpha male. And at times, these bouts of wavering lead to vicious dominance fights between Splitting-Hares and the two breeding age males of the pack - especially the forward minded beta. Tension rose in the pack little by little, and where once things had gone smoothly for the kin pack with a Garou leading them, things started to fray. They may have never have had to really worry about finding food or safe waters to drink from, as Splitting-Hares had his ways of providing for the pack in times of duress and harsh Alaskan winters over wind-tossed, ice-covered tundra, but with winter also came breeding opportunities. Noisemaker may have only been almost a year old, but even she understood that Splitting-Hares lost his dominance over the pack when the beta drove him away. What she wouldn't have understood then was Splitting-Hares' choice that day. The Wendigo ragabash could not bring himself to injure the kin wolves he had for two years provided for. In gracious retreat, Splitting-Hares returned to his sept. The kin wolves and Noisemaker were left in peace... for as long as it could last with a Garou cub in their midst. In that next spring, the alpha female had more pups, but far fewer than before. The omega, former-alpha, turned lone wolf when the new alpha drove him away as well for a time. The pack was reduced to bitterly small numbers, but it was soon summer and the shrunken pack managed to secure its equally shrunken, but plentiful territory in the routes and grazing lands of wild caribou. The calm omega who had been driven away returned with the summer herds, with him a lone female he had met. They were a rather pathetic pair, starving without the aid of a pack to help bring down anything bigger than morsels of birds and small mammals, but with much whining and groveling, the new and old members were accepted into the pack again. The fighting between the males may have been significantly lessened, but then the normally placid alpha female who had allowed much in the past grew tense and bullied the new female. Throughout all this, the yearlings of Splitting-Hares (who had since met his fate as he had feared) grew with the one surviving pup of the alpha male's litter. Over this time, Noisemaker grew stronger, bolder, taking her place as a member of the pack, one that could hunt and defend the territory. She relished in the chase, in running through the wild, in the change of the seasons from summer to winter and back again. In the company of her packmates, she felt her own harmony with the ebb and flow of the pack. Whatever happened, she was quick to sing of it, to howl her appreciation, defiance, and even sometimes to release a pent up, inexplicable sense of anger. It was like she felt the change that was coming but could not describe it in anything but the howls and growls she made. It was not confusion, as Noisemaker was not one to remain unaware of the nature of a thing for long. If investigating wouldn't produce results, then she would mentally worry the oddity until distracted by some other curious, but more explainable situation. The cub was growing rapidly in her natal pack, unaware of her true nature that would inevitably come. It was not long into the winter of her second year that Noisemaker and the rest of the pack noticed signs that their wild was not quite the same. The caribou didn't come through their usual route, and the pack was left hungry much more often than before. Strange scents were on the wind that drove the pack further to the opposing edge of their territory, going south and east in efforts to escape the alien changes. Inexplicable shapes of things not found in the wild that bore some sickly sweet, alluring scents to the nose tickled at their appetites. Only one of Noisemaker's littermates gave in to the hunger and chewed at these things. That littermate died one day, sprawled on her side unable to move with her mouth hung open and gasping vainly for air, having gotten a piece of human litter lodged in her throat. The pack left her behind, and it was again a time that Noisemaker had felt a strange heat in her own chest and heaviness in her belly when it was empty. Noisemaker released that fire through the fullness of her song, which then turned deep and low. It was her first mourning howl, and the pack had then felt compelled to stop their travels and join her in moving chorus. Although the wolves lingered for a while, it was not even a full year before their alpha finally determined to lead them away, that they needed to search for food in a more abundant territory. Although they remained within Alaska, the pack still moved farther from Splitting-Hares' sept. (( The elders of the sept knew their wolf kin had to migrate further from the humans. They knew they would have to send Garou out there eventually to check on them. But Splitting-Hares had never gotten the chance to tell them of his Garou daughter, still growing in the kin-pack, and getting ever so much closer to her First Change. The wolf pack only knew that they were coming down to find some way to survive. From the tundra they traveled further and deeper than they had ever gone. Spruce and other hardwood trees were far more abundant than before. Prey was also more abundant here, but the pack's generally white coated fur worked less well in stealth. It was a further struggle to keep such a large pack sustained, and little by little the lack of food drove up the tension and drove away some of Noisemaker's littermates. The female that the alpha female had bullied gave up and ran away, abandoning the now-sub male she had joined the pack with. Instead, one of Noisemaker's male littermates ran off with her. The move seemed to bring out a more irritable side within the young Noisemaker. She became quicker to nip at those around her, especially those under her, quicker to pick fights, to growl and threaten, more demanding in her manner. Her irritable manner did not win her favors with the alpha female and mother, but at least the cub remembered her place more often than she forgot - or dared to forget. In her growing hunger and subsequently increasing rage, Noisemaker was even less tolerant of her packmates who were beneath her and took out the products of her frustrations on them, shuffling the annoyance from the dominant wolves at her on down the line. And though she may have been the dominant one of the pups not so long ago, each of the young wolves were coming into their own. The fluidity of pack dynamics ensured the competition was fierce in the subranks on who would be the next beta, the next sub ranks, the next omega. Noisemaker definitely was not satisfied with being on the bottom of the pile, but was hardpressed to keep her place and had to fall and climb back up frequently. It was after the first successful large hunt in this new territory, in which the pack finally managed to take down a caribou, that one of the other younger wolves moved to challenge Noisemaker's position in the line-up to feast. She was quick to defend her spot, angrier about the offense than it would normally call for, and in the midst of their dominance struggle, Noisemaker Firsted, bulking up into Crinos in a rage-filled frenzy. Thanks to her clumsiness in this new form, the wolves were able to scatter and fled the area entirely. The challenging wolf was only gashed lightly along its side as she ran. Noisemaker's kinfetch was already off and running, flying off to find the nearest Garou, to tell of the cub. By this time, though, the pack had moved quite far away from Splitting-Hares' sept and it would be far too far, far too late for the spirit to have arrived there and the Wendigo to track its path all the way back to the cub - it simply didn't have that kind of power. In the relatively Garou-barren woods here, though, the tiny spirit was so fortunate to stumble upon one lone traveler. That lone traveler was Howls-in-the-Last-Light-of-the-Autumn-Sun, Adren Galliard of the Wendigo, also lupus-born. He had journeyed northward to spread news from his home Sept and was on his way home when the kinfetch appeared to him. He followed the fetch back to the collapsed form of Noisemaker, and from there began the challenging task of reassuring and comforting an extremely confused and defensive lupus cub. It took quite a bit of patience on Last-Light’s behalf, not to mention show of dominance, but he was able to draw upon his own experience to aid the cub. Noisemaker took the change and this new way of life in stride, one lesson at a time. Together, they slowly made their way back to Last-Light’s home, and along the way Noisemaker learned of her true heritage, that she was a Galliard, destined to howl out news and stories to the Garou world, and that she was Wendigo. She decided it was a little like a /huge/ pack, the Wendigo, and within it, she had her place, Galliard. The Litany was the next thing they tackled, as well as shifting (Oh, how she disliked homid! Such dull senses…), and the lessons progressed from there. Noisemaker grew more confident in her new role, although she’d still challenge the boundaries on occasion, always testing those rules of dominance. Upon reaching their destination, Noisemaker eased her way into Sept life, slowly learning the hierarchy and expectations. Not only that, but she had to learn about a new environment, one much warmer and more plentiful than the one she’d known before. She was curious and eager, as well as easily distracted when a lesson was either too boring or too foreign for her to easily grasp, which led to her cubname: Must-Be-Told-Things-Twice. There was one other defining incident within Noisemaker’s life as a cub. Although she was introduced to a few kin, she didn’t exactly understand them, the human ones. One particular kin happened to have a stubborn streak to her, which set off a more dominant-oriented Garou. When that Garou moved to strike the kin, Noisemaker leapt in front of the blow, sparing the kin what would have been a nasty injury. And thus began a protective streak within her for the kin of the Sept. When he felt she was finally ready, Last-Light told Noisemaker a tale. There was a spirit upon the snow-capped mountain, he claimed, that never heard anything more than echoes from the world below. However, there was a frightening beast that lived lower in the mountains, preventing others from visiting the trapped spirit above. Her task was simple: Travel up the umbral mountain and sing a song to this spirit, so that it would not feel as lonely. Noisemaker started off on this journey with enthusiasm, eager to prove herself. Along the way, there were small trials, but it was when she /arrived/ that the real fun began. She came upon a deer-spirit that was fleeing a bane. Naturally, she stepped in to aid the spirit in trouble. In thanks, the deer-spirit told her when the mountain’s fierce guardian slept, and it gifted her with the ability to blend in with the wilderness. With this new gift in hand, Noisemaker continued on her journey, and she did managed to sneak all the way to the top of the mountain without being noticed. Once there, she howled her greeting to the spirit of the mountain, then sang of the joy of her life below, and how she had often admired the mountain from a distance. This caused the beast below to awaken, growling as it started to climb with incredible speed, seeking out the one that evaded it… But the mountain was /also/ moved by Noisemaker’s bold song, and a portion of snow and rock broke away, toppling down to cover over the monster, thus ensuring Noisemaker’s escape. And that is why she thereafter earned the right to call herself Noisemaker-Whose-Song-Moves-the-Mountain. Becoming a Cliath opened up an entirely different world for Noisemaker, and once again she had to feel out her place, who she was under, who was under her. There was also so much more to learn! Not to mention participate in, from moot positions to actually being allowed to join in the important fights. From participating in revels to hunts to even scouting endeavors, Noisemaker became a more competent warrior, and she certainly got practice in expression herself with /words/ when retelling the battles later. She likely would have been happy at the Sept of the Painted Dawn for the rest of her days had Last-Light not approached her. Once again, he steered her path, telling her that as a Galliard, she needed to know more of the world, to better understand the stories that she sings. He spoke of a Sept to the south that had gone through some difficulties, and of how it could use aid now. All he asked was that she go and aid them for one year, longer if she felt necessary, and then she could come back and share the story. The tidbits of news that Last-Light had heard nudged Noisemaker’s natural curiosity enough that she agreed, and after saying her farewells (and getting enough directions), she headed for Crystal Springs. Personality Noisemaker is, firstly, curious, and secondly, happy to be alive. She is excited to find out about new things, but will also be quick to judge whether that thing is good or bad. She is confident in her abilities, but also aware that she does need others to compliment what she lacks. In essence, she is more comfortable in a pack, or, at least, with other Garou around. Or /someone/. She's not exactly the lone wolf type. If she were a homid, she'd love to talk, but as it is, she loves sharing her experiences. She's quick to jump into action, too, once she's decided on an action, trusting her instincts. This... could often mean jumping before she looks. She's protective of kin and others she sees as weaker (cubs, in a sense), and will put her life in danger for them. She has a stubborn streak to her, but will back down if the other proves dominant. She will respect those that show they're confident in their position and know their place, but those that waver, well, she'll test the waters. She is perceptive, quick to pick up on what's going on around her, particularly tones and feelings, even if she doesn't completely understand it all. She's also a clever girl, though, and might just understand more than you might expect. Sheet Attributes Strength: 2 Charisma: 3 Perception: 4 (Sharp-Hearing) Dexterity: 3 Manipulation: 2 Intelligence: 3 Stamina: 3 Appearance: 2 Wits: 4 (Clever) Willpower: 6 Rage: 4 Gnosis: 5 Abilities Talents: 13 :Athletics 2 :Brawl 2 :Expression 2 :Dodge 3 :Intimidation 3 :Primal Urge 2 :Vigilance 3 Skills: 9 :Performance 3 (Focus: Storytelling) :Stealth 3 :Survival 3 Knowledges: 5 :Enigmas 1 :Linguistics 1 (English) :Rituals 3 Backgrounds *Pure Breed 1 (Wendigo) *Mentor 2 (Last-Light) *Totem 2 * Rites 3 (Greet the Sun 0, Hunting Prayer 0, Gathering for the Departed 1, Rite of Moot 1, Rite of Potlatch 1, Rite of Wounding 1, Sweat Lodge 1, and Rite of Accomplishment 2) Gifts *Hare's Leap *Call of the Wyld *Camouflage Merits * Iron Will (3) * Natural Leader (1) Flaws * Banned Transformation: When Silver Is Near (4) - Note: This hasn't come up yet in her life. * Curiosity (2) Freebies 3 points to Willpower 5 points for Charisma 8 points to Talents 5 points to Wits Total 21 ; Current +learn : * Name: Mindspeak (11/30/09) * From: Sidney * Approved By: Luna * As payment for helping Sidney gain more Gnosis, Noisemaker is learning a Galliard gift. ; Current +teach * Name: Gnosis 5 (2/25/09) * To: Sidney * Approved By: Luna * Noisemaker is helping Sidney learn Gnosis, as they seek Hummingbird's guidance, and the bird needs it badly! They'll be spending a lot of time in the Umbra within the Bawn and Caern as she helps Sidney become more in tune with his spiritual side. : Category:Past PCs